Another thing that bothers me about this (sorry, on a freakin rager here) - why are no cops speaking out against what happened? Like, "hey, what those officers did was uncalled for"? Are they not allowed to? Do they not care? Do they actually agree with the actions taken? I am not anti-cop, I truly believe the majority - while cocky douches at times - are decent people who every day have their asses on the line. But notice all those right-winger nutjobs who shouted "why are no muslims decrying terrorist actions, huh??!!" are conspicuously silent here. I hate to keep spewing "hypocrisy" like a cracked out parrot, but the examples of it in response to recent events just grates my cheese

'How dare you stand next to me in the same uniform and murder somebody?': Black female police officer delivers impassioned response about police shootings

Nakia Jones is the first black woman officer in Warrensville Heights, Ohio

She said she became a cop in 1996 to 'make a difference in people's lives'

Jones said one of her sons showed her the video of Alton Sterling's shooting death in Louisiana and she watched it 'over and over'

She made a Facebook live video Wednesday condemning the shooting and it has gone viral with over two million views in less than 24 hours

Jones said: 'How dare you stand next to me in the same uniform and murder somebody. How dare you? You ought to be ashamed of yourself'

A black female police officer in Ohio delivered a powerful, emotional and personal response to the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling in Louisiana.

In a Facebook live video recorded on Wednesday, Nakia Jones who works as a police officer in Warrensville Heights, said that she watched the graphic video of Sterling's shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana 'over and over'.Jones said she became a police officer in 1996 in East Cleveland before becoming the first black woman officer in Warrensville Heights.

She explains that growing up on East 93rd and Kinsman, what she called a 'ghetto' neighborhood, and later on in East Cleveland, is what inspired her to become a police officer.Scroll down for video oerful reaction to Louisiana cop-involved shooting

+10

Nakia Jones (above) works as a police officer in Warrensville Heights, Ohio. She said in a Facebook live recording that she watched the graphic video of Alton Sterling's shooting in Louisiana 'over and over'

+10

Jones (above) said she became a police officer in 1996 in East Cleveland before becoming the first black woman officer in Warrensville Heights. She said she became a cop to 'make a difference in people's lives'

+10

Jones said that she watched the shocking video of Sterling's shooting (above) several times and became upset and angry. 'How dare you stand next to me in the same uniform and murder somebody,' she said

'The reason I became a police officer is to make a difference in people's lives,' Jones said.

'I know what it's like to have a parent on drugs. I know what it's like to watch people be picked on and bullied and all kinds of things. 'I said I wanted to make a difference and I want to be that change, so I became that change.'

She said that she is a wife and the mother to two boys, one of which showed her the disturbing video of Sterling's shooting.Jones said that she watched the shocking video several times and became upset and angry.

'How dare you stand next to me in the same uniform and murder somebody,' she said.

'How dare you? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. If you're that officer and you know you have a God complex and you're afraid of people who don't look like you, you have no business wearing the uniform. Take it off.'

She also took aim at police officers and people who unfairly criticize and categorize all police officers together after police involved shooting incidents as well as those who commit gun violence.

'I'm so hurt, it bothers me when people say: 'police officers this' or 'police officers that'. They put us in this negative category,' Jones said in the more than seven minute long video.

'But I'm saying to myself, 'I'm not that kind of police officer'.'I know officers that are like me that would give their life for other people.

'There's many of us who would give our life for anybody, and we took this oath and we meant it.

'If you are an officer who is prejudiced, take the uniform off and put the KKK hoodie on.'

'If you are white, and you work as (a police officer) in a black community, and you are racist, you need to be ashamed of yourself.

'You stood up there and took an oath. If this is not where you want to work, then you need to take your behind somewhere else.

'If you're afraid to talk to an African American female or a Mexican male or female because they're not white like you, take the uniform off. You have no business being a police officer.'

Jones' video has been viewed more than two million on Facebook with more than 136,000 shares in less than 24 hours since being shared.

'You have no right to be an officer': Black female police officer responds police shootings and tells colleagues to take off their uniform
She also called on black men and children to stop using guns and to unite together as a community, in an attempt to call for an end to gun violence.

'Put these guns down because we're killing each other,' Jones said. 'And the reason why all this racist stuff keeps going on is because we're divided. We're killing each other, not standing together.'
The passionate mother said that she felt like quitting her job at the police department after watching the tragic video of Sterling's shooting.

'But I need you all to support the (officers) that are right,' Jones said. 'And I need for you to stand against those that are not right.'

Jones' video was shared hours before the fatal police involved shooting of Philando Castile, 32, whose death was live streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, on Wednesday in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

His devastated mother, Valerie Castile, says that she was prevented from seeing her son on his deathbed and claimed they have been unable to locate Reynolds since she was detained by police.

'If I wasn't a police officer and I wasn't on the inside, I would be saying, 'Look at this racist stuff. Look at this.' And it hurt me.'
She added that there are officers who would give their life to defend people.

Mail Online contacted the St. Anthony's Police Department in Falcon Heights Thursday morning who said that Reynold was released from custody around 4 or 5am.

The shocking footage of the aftermath of the shooting has sparked protests in Saint Paul, with hundreds of people descending on the Governor of Minnesota's house demanding justice. It is the second controversial police shooting of a black man to emerge in 24 hours after Sterling was killed in Louisiana.

In the video of Castile's shooting that's gone viral, Reynolds tells viewers that she and Castile were pulled over for a busted tail light by a 'Chinese police officer'.

She claims the cop, from the St. Anthony Police Department in Falcon Heights, asked Castile, a cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori school in St Paul, to show his license, but then shot him four times while he reached for it.

As she talks, she moves the camera across to show Castile, bloody and losing consciousness, and the cop - still pointing his gun, as her young daughter sits in the back seat.
The police officer, who is yet to be identified, been placed on paid leave.

This is bad. I'm beginning to really hate the police, like truly hate them. I want to cheer that someone killed a bunch of them last night and that is so so wrong. I don't even know what to do about it.

My feelings are all over the fence too, greys...I don't want cops to die like this either. This is awful and I'm relieved the killer is dead and can't inflict any more damage. But it would not have come to this if the police didn't have a brutal and deadly history in black communities in America. The past few years leading up to Baton Rouge and St. Paul/Minneapolis were the straws that broke the camel's back.I grew up with cops giving me and my friends and family members a hard time or worse. I also have cops in my family (including a couple of white guys who married into my family), so I am torn like you are.

Have you read the comments of quite a large number of idiots all over the (social) media? That it is all "Barry's" or "Hussain's" fault? By those names they mean our President, Barack Obama. Man, were people wrong when they thought the election of a half black president was proof racism was on its way out. It never ceased, it just took on other forms and now it's way back out in the open again. I'm so disgusted, ugh.

Also don't underestimate the pressure cops with a minority background are under. The "Chinese" cop who killed the guy in the car, I'm not excusing him, but he's been brainwashed by statistics and his "police family" too. There's plenty of racism within police forces going on as well; a "which side are you on?" type of situation.

Watch, now the politicians will get serious about gun control because they're going to have to protect cops. It didn't matter when people were being shot in the street by cops will legal guns. Now, it's serious. No one is safe right now, in uniform or not.

Ugh, my stomach is all up in knots right now. Just had it out with my co-worker that I know better than to engage on these topics. Seems perfectly nice in every other circumstance, but believes that only person that's truly oppressed in America, the only person it's okay to discriminate against are white men and that taking away even an inch of gun freedom is stripping away his most basic rights as a human being. A seemingly normal person becomes insanely irrational and goes berserk. I think he'd be perfectly happy to go back to Mad Men days. Someone that has probably never experienced discrimination claiming to be the most discriminated against. It's the thing that drives me mad about watching politicians debate this on tv. How do you try to reason or even have a conversation with someone that shuts down and claims they are the ones being persecuted as soon as someone disagrees with them? How can you address a problem when so many people even refuse to acknowledge there IS a problem? Gee, I'm sorry your white man world is becoming more diverse, that your white-man-centric worldview is being infringed upon, that the world you grew up in is going away, that there is less and less people that agree with you. There are so many people clinging so strongly to that way of thinking, that the changes and increasing acceptance in our world today are just that threatening to their core beliefs, that they lash out in these insane, violent, illogical, and horrific ways and see themselves as the victims. And call it defending themselves, standing up for their freedoms and god-given 'Murican rights. The certain subset of people who mentally cannot cope with the world not revolving around their belief system are the real terrorists.

It's legal in Texas to carry an AR15 around with you. Funny how people don't get concerned until it's a black guy carrying it. The one guy who Dallas police tweeted was a suspect has turned out to not actually be a suspect. That's the problem with open-carry laws - you can't tell who's a good guy with a gun and who's the nut shooting at cops. I am so over guns that I don't think anyone deserves to have them. Want to hunt? Get a bow and arrow, you pussy.

Everything about all of this is sad.

Originally Posted by OrangeSlice

Ugh, my stomach is all up in knots right now. Just had it out with my co-worker that I know better than to engage on these topics. Seems perfectly nice in every other circumstance, but believes that only person that's truly oppressed in America, the only person it's okay to discriminate against are white men and that taking away even an inch of gun freedom is stripping away his most basic rights as a human being. A seemingly normal person becomes insanely irrational and goes berserk. I think he'd be perfectly happy to go back to Mad Men days. Someone that has probably never experienced discrimination claiming to be the most discriminated against. It's the thing that drives me mad about watching politicians debate this on tv. How do you try to reason or even have a conversation with someone that shuts down and claims they are the ones being persecuted as soon as someone disagrees with them? How can you address a problem when so many people even refuse to acknowledge there IS a problem? Gee, I'm sorry your white man world is becoming more diverse, that your white-man-centric worldview is being infringed upon, that the world you grew up in is going away, that there is less and less people that agree with you. There are so many people clinging so strongly to that way of thinking, that the changes and increasing acceptance in our world today are just that threatening to their core beliefs, that they lash out in these insane, violent, illogical, and horrific ways and see themselves as the victims. And call it defending themselves, standing up for their freedoms and god-given 'Murican rights. The certain subset of people who mentally cannot cope with the world not revolving around their belief system are the real terrorists.

When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

Unfortunately there are a lot of reactionaries online who decry all types of social justice, and they sit around and pine for a time they never lived in, fueled by television shows from the 50s and whatnot, when white men had it 'better' and were 'real men' and everyone else 'knew their place.' They want to drag everything backwards and mostly, they see almost everything as 'rocking the boat' on the status quo which threatens what privileges they have left.

^I've just had a discussion about racism this past Tuesday at my workplace with another person of color from the Dutch Caribbean Islands and two white co-workers. It's an international organization and most people employed there are highly educated, yet being white makes them extremely STOOOOOPID, regarding racial discrimination. We tried to explain to them what it is like to have people show you - in a sprectrum that goes from tiny instances to huge, openly bigoted, ways - they actually think you should be honored to even be allowed to interact with them. They tried to put it on people of color grasping at every straw to chalk everything bad that happened to them up to racism and then we explained they only saw a fraction of what most of us who are ethnic minorities go through dozens of times a day. At one point we said that we understood that they could not understand, because they have never been a minority, to which one of them replied "I'm a minority in this company because I am a woman". My DC co-worker and I just exchanged knowing looks and said "Okay, you are discriminated against because you are a white woman. Now multiply that by 100 and then you will know what we experience as women of color." Sheesh.

Teachers And Parents Share Just How Seriously Philando Castile Took His Job As A Cafeteria Supervisor
On Tuesday, Alton Sterling, a father of five, was shot and killed after being tackled by two police officers. On Wednesday, Philando Castile was shot and killed during a traffic stop after telling the police officer that he was carrying a legal firearm. And last night we unfortunately saw more violence, five police officers who had absolutely nothing to do the killings were shot dead in Dallas by at least one man who "wanted to kill white officers."

Instead of focusing on the murderers, let's focus on the victims from both sides. In this particular case, Philando Castile. On Thursday evening, colleagues and parents at the J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School remembered Castile, where he worked as a cafeteria supervisor.

One pretty amazing detail emerged from the memorial service. Joan Edman, a former coworker, told TIME that Castile had memorized the names of all 500 kids he served, as well as their individual allergies:One pretty amazing detail emerged from the memorial service. Joan Edman, a former coworker, told TIME that Castile had memorized the names of all 500 kids he served, as well as their individual allergies:

“He remembered their names. He remembered who couldn’t have milk. He knew what they could have to eat and what they couldn’t. This was a real guy. He made a real contribution. Yes, black lives matter. But this man mattered.”

“I’ve never seen anybody take that kind of role so seriously,” Edman added. “He followed directions carefully.”

“He was much a teacher than any teacher in that building. We had a calmer cafeteria this year, and I think it was because he was there.”

Castile was someone who “has that presence that people respect and they become more respectful too,” Edman said. “I think he did that for kids,” she said. “Kids watch everything, and they saw that. He had so much going for him. He didn’t have an axe to grind. It just doesn’t make sense. This is a real person. Five hundred real children are directly impacted.”

Parents also took the opportunity to remember Castile. They said they felt safe knowing Castile was in charge and that he had "transformed the cafeteria into a positive and cheerful space."
“He was a fixture. I was always happy to see him around school. The cafeteria was a pretty happy place. He was part of the community and an important one,” Andrew Karre told TIME.

“He was just a nice, caring person who worked at the school, who should not be dead,” said Karre, 37.
In the school district's statement, a coworker said that Castile was "overqualified" but still took the job seriously:

“Kids loved him. He was quiet, respectful and kind. I knew him as warm and funny. “He wore a shirt and tie to his supervisor interview and said his goal was to one day ‘sit on the other side of this table.’

I drove into town today and a woman blew past me in a minivan going at least 90 mph. I shook my head and said to myself that if that were me, there would have been 10 cop cars after me. On my way back, I'm following behind 2 cars going faster than me. I pass a cop who then whips around and turns on his lights. I pull over. He walks up to the car and asks why do I think he was pulling me over. I told him that I had no idea. He told me that I was doing 40 mph in a 30 mph zone. He asked for my license and registration. I shook my head as I reached for them. He said to me, "What's wrong? You seem to have an attitude." I didn't answer. I handed him everything and looked straight ahead. He walked away and I pulled out my phone because I was nervous. There weren't any cars around and I was on a side street. I hit record. He walked back and looked into my car and saw the phone. He told me that it was okay that I was recording him and asked again what was wrong. I didn't say anything. I signed the citation and then drove off. A few years ago, I would have been apologetic and all smiles in an effort to get out of a ticket. Now, I felt lucky that he didn't want to teach me a lesson. The wrong word could have caused me harm. Sure, it was a simple situation, but as I told my friend, they are killing us in the street, in the car and in our homes. I'm sorry about the officers that were killed, but at the same time, I can't help but have a silent attitude when I encounter an officer. I know to keep my mouth shut though...any little thing....

The Twitter hash tag, #IfIDieInPoliceCustody was heartbreaking last year. It still is.

A lot of cops are shady as fuck, and I know it's a lot worse if you're not, say, a 30-something white lady driving a Camry. I went through a DUI checkpoint a few years ago and the cop didn't even say boo about the fact that I had a headlight out (didn't realize that until I got home) and expired registration (I did know that, just hadn't gotten around to sending the check yet). I have no doubt that if I were a different demographic, I'd have at best had to call for a ride instead of being sent on my way.

I'm so sorry that happened to you SG. You'd think that with the national conversation starting to happen about such things, they'd be on good behavior, but apparently not. Ugh.